There was no control over bushfire that scorched runners: police

Aja Styles

A West Australian pastoral estate fire that trapped four runners, causing two of them life-threatening injuries, was mostly left to its own devices, according to a police investigator.

Kate Sanderson, 35, from Victoria, and Turia Pitt, 24, from New South Wales, were competing in the 100-kilometre Kimberley Ultramarathon, part of the Racing the Planet series, on Friday afternoon when the bushfire crossed their path.

The pair had been near two male competitors when the fire encircled them at the El Questro Wilderness Estate - 1,000,000 acres of gorges and wilderness near the Northern Territory border.

Kate Sanderson.

One of the men, Michael Hull from NSW, told how the four of them had to jump through a wall of flames surrounding them in a gorge in order to save their lives.

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Mr Hull and fellow competitor Martin Van Der Merwe suffered 20 per cent burns to their bodies but Ms Sanderson and Ms Pitt suffered critical injuries and had to be flown to Darwin and then home for treatment.

Ms Sanderson went into a coma and was being treated for burns to more than 70 per cent per cent of her body at The Alfred hospital yesterday.

Ms Pitt suffered up to 80 per cent burns to her body but had begun breathing on her own while being treated at Sydney's Concord Hospital.

Kimberley Superintendent Mick Sutherland called into question the risk assessment made by the event's organisers since the fire had been burning in the area five days prior to the competition.

He said it wasn't known what started the fire but due to the frequency of bushfires in remote pastoral areas, most were left unattended.

"This was one fire that fits that category," he said.

He said police were only informed of the event on August 16 and had not been asked to give any kind of briefing to organisers about the dangers of such remote areas, particularly during the fire season.

"I don't know what their level of preparedness was," he said. "I would expect people who run such an event to contact local emergency providers when making risk management plans.

"We would offer that advice to anyone coming to the Kimberley any time of year."

The bushfire season has already begun in the Kimberley, with 30 fires burning in the area at the time of the event, according to Superintendent Sutherland.

But authorities' hands have been tied over the incident since it was a privately-run event on private land.

"I have been actioned by police to investigate this because people have been seriously injured but my only role is to see if there was any criminality around this issue," he said.

He said his investigation, which will not be made public, was unlikely to uncover any criminality since the fire had begun on Monday. A Fire and Emergency investigator together with an arson officer have helped in the investigation.

Racing The Planet organiser Samantha Fanshawe told ABC Radio the fire "flared up very suddenly" and they had been earlier informed the fire was not a threat to the event.

She said they were now investigating who was involved in the pre-race planning and making a full timeline of what occurred but "I don't want to disclose those details".

A spokeswoman for the estate, Louise Longman, said what occurred was in the hands of organisers, despite the fire being under the management of the estate.

"We just gave permission for them to start from Emma Gorge and that was it, there was no other involvement," she said.

She said she thought the bushfire was self-starting despite TheWest Australian reporting that numerous sources claimed the fire may have been a planned burn which got out of control.

Ms Longman acknowledged the fire was being monitored by El Questro management, which used a helicopter scout and satellite imagery, but she did not want to comment about what was communicated between the two parties.

"It was very limited communication," she said.

The Bureau of Meterology's chief forecaster Luke Huntington said the area had a low to moderate fire danger at the time.

"There wouldn't have been strong winds or anything. Winds were 15 to 20 kilometres an hour and the temperature was 35 degrees," he said.

He said the spread or uptake of a fire largely depended on the surface and amount of vegetation but the risk was low.

Race organisers said a fifth person who got burnt, Mary Gadams, was released from hospital yesterday and their "thoughts and prayers" remained with the four who were still in hospital.

1 May
Turia Pitt wasn't planning to run in the Kimberley Ultra-marathon. Victorian Kate Sanderson on the other hand, had been planning for the race for almost a year. Yesterday they sat together – both showing the life-long scars of the ill-fated race - and recounted the day their lives were "destroyed" after they became trapped by fire in a narrow, rocky gorge.

20 Apr
The West Australian government knew nothing about the death of a competitor in an adventure race in China before sponsoring a similar event in the Kimberley in which two women almost burned to death.

20 Apr
Organisers of the ill-fated Kimberley marathon did not issue an emergency management plan until the day before the event, which left two women with serious burns when they became trapped in a fire.

21 Feb
Kate Sanderson, who was horrifically injured when a bushfire swept through the Kimberley during the Ultramarathon event last September, will finally be allowed to go home today after nearly six months in a Melbourne hospital.